Meg Whitman, Patricia Russo Among Five Joining HP Board

Former EBay CEO Meg Whitman, and former Alcatel-Lucent CEO Patricia Russo were among five new directors named to the board of directors at Hewlett-Packard.

The other three at Shumeet Banerji, CEO of Booz and Co, Shumeet Banerji former CIO at General Electric and Dominique Senequier CEO of AXA Private Equity.

Four sitting directors Joel Hyatt, John Joyce, Robert Ryan and Lucille Salhany will not stand for re-election, at the next company shareholder meeting in March, the company said.

The move is by far the most sweeping change to hit HP since Léo Apotheker, took over the reins as CEO last year following the departure of Mark Hurd following a allegations of sexual harassment against Hurd by Jodie Fisher, a onetime HP contractor.

Once the latest shake-up is complete, HP’s board will have undergone a nearly complete makeover in recent years. None of the continuing board members will pre-date the Compaq acquisition, with Lawrence Babbio, Jr. the former Verizon President as the longest standing board member having joined at the completion of the HP-Compaq deal. Babbio was a member of Compaq’s board before the merger. All of the others have joined since 2005.

During the last decade HP’s board has been rocked by more than a few scandals, one involving a scheme to spy on journalists in an effort to ferret out the source of a persistent leak. More recently the board has been facing questions about its judgment, first for seeking Hurd’s resignation following the revelation of the sexual harassment complaint, and then for allowing him to leave with more some $53 million in compensation as he went on to become a president HP rival Oracle. HP is facing lawsuits in Delaware and California from shareholders over the incident, and was reported yesterday to be planning a new independent investigation into the circumstances leading up to Hurd’s departure.

Shares of HP shot upward when word of the shakeup first began to leak. The shares rose during the last 20 minutes of trading, closing up 46 cents or nearly 1 percent $46.78 a share.

HP’s statement is below.

HP Announces Changes to Board of Directors

Five highly accomplished business leaders to be added to board
PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 20, 2011

HP today announced that its board of directors has appointed five new members, effective Jan. 21. The appointments bring the total number of board members to 17 until HP’s next Annual Meeting of Stockholders in March, at which time the size of the board is expected to be reduced to 13 members.

The new directors are Shumeet Banerji, chief executive officer of Booz & Company; Gary Reiner, former chief information officer of General Electric Company and a current special advisor to private equity firm General Atlantic; Patricia Russo, former chief executive officer of Alcatel-Lucent; Dominique Senequier, chief executive officer of AXA Private Equity; and Meg Whitman, former president and chief executive officer of eBay Inc. The five new directors also will stand for re-election at HP’s next Annual Meeting of Stockholders in March.

In addition, HP announced that incumbent directors Joel Hyatt, John Joyce, Robert Ryan and Lucille Salhany are not standing for re-election at the company’s Annual Meeting of Stockholders.

“The addition of these new directors will further diversify the outstanding talents and wide-ranging experience that our directors already bring to HP,” said Raymond J. Lane, non-executive chairman of the board of directors, HP. “Each is a widely respected and deeply experienced business leader, and together they will provide our board and management team with new insight and perspectives relating to HP’s business and the rapidly changing technology industry.”

Lane discussed the new directors’ backgrounds: “Shumeet Banerji is a respected strategic adviser and will bring to the HP board international, financial, operational and management experience and a true understanding of the issues facing companies and governments in both mature and emerging markets around the world. Gary Reiner will be an important voice of the customer on our board, thanks to his deep insight into how IT can help global companies succeed and his decades of experience driving corporate strategy, information technology and best practices across complex organizations.

“Pat Russo is an experienced executive with extensive global business experience, a broad understanding of the tech industry, and strong management, operations and governance skills. Dominique Senequier is a highly regarded and influential financier who brings broad international perspective, strong financial acumen and a keen focus on long-term performance. Meg Whitman is a true visionary and thought leader who brings to the HP board unique experience in developing transformative business models, building global brands and driving sustained growth and expansion.”

“I am confident that HP’s stockholders, customers and employees will benefit from all of their talents and ideas, and I look forward to working closely with the entire board and management team as we pursue the exciting opportunities in front of us,” Lane concluded.

About Shumeet Banerji

Shumeet Banerji, 51, is chief executive officer of Booz & Company, a global management consulting firm. Most recently, he has focused on counseling government ministries and financial services institutions on the impact of changing demographics around the globe. Banerji joined Booz Allen Hamilton in 1993 and has served clients in both the public and private sector. Earlier in his career, he was a member of the faculty at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Banerji, who is based in London, earned a Ph.D. from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.A. and MBA from Delhi University.

About Gary Reiner

Gary Reiner, 56, serves as a special advisor to private equity firm General Atlantic, providing strategic counsel to the firm and the companies it partners with worldwide. During his career at GE, he served as senior vice president and chief information officer, head of GE Information Services, and as vice president, Corporate Business Development. Reiner’s responsibilities included overseeing IT, operations, sourcing, mergers and acquisitions and quality for the company’s global operations, including GE’s renowned Six Sigma quality initiative. Earlier in his career, Reiner was a partner at Boston Consulting Group, where he focused on strategic and process issues for high-technology businesses.

Reiner earned a B.A. in economics from Harvard and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

About Patricia Russo

Patricia Russo, 58, is the former chief executive officer of Alcatel-Lucent, a global communication solutions provider. She also previously served as chairman and CEO of Lucent Technologies, president of Eastman Kodak and chairman of Avaya, which was spun off from Lucent. Earlier in her career, she held management positions at AT&T and IBM. Currently, Russo serves on the board of directors of General Motors, Merck & Co. and ALCOA, Inc.

Russo earned a B.A. in history from Georgetown University and completed Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.

About Dominique Senequier

Dominique Senequier, 57, is chief executive officer of AXA Private Equity. She joined AXA Investment Managers in 1996 and founded the subsidiary AXA Private Equity that same year. Senequier is a member of the Institut des Actuaries Français (French Actuarial Institute) and a non-voting member of the supervisory board of Schneider Electric SA. Prior to joining AXA Investment Managers, she created and developed the subsidiary “GAN Participations” at GAN, an insurance firm.

Senequier is a graduate of École Polytechnique and holds a DEA (post-graduate degree) in banking and monetary economics from the University of Sorbonne, Paris.

About Meg Whitman

Meg Whitman, 54, is best known for her 10-year tenure as president and CEO of eBay Inc., a global ecommerce and payments company. She ran the company from 1998 to 2008. Prior to working for eBay, she held management positions at Bain & Company, the Stride Rite Corporation, the Walt Disney Company, Procter & Gamble Co., FTD and Hasbro. She also is a former board member of the eBay Foundation, Procter & Gamble and DreamWorks SKG, having resigned in 2009 in preparation for her California gubernatorial bid. Whitman became the third woman in a 20-year period to run for the office and won the Republican primary in 2010.

Whitman was born on Long Island, N.Y. She earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from Princeton University in 1977. She received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1979.

Four directors are not standing for re-election

“Joel Hyatt, John Joyce, Bob Ryan and Lucille Salhany have offered invaluable service to HP over many years, and we are deeply grateful for their insights, counsel and commitment to HP’s business,” said Lane. “These directors worked tirelessly and effectively to navigate HP through a difficult leadership change in the last six months.

“As a recent addition to HP’s board, I have been incredibly impressed by Joel, John, Bob and Lucille’s experience and talents. I know the entire board of directors joins me in thanking each of these directors for their many contributions towards the long-term success of HP.”

Ryan, the former lead independent director of the board, said, “It has been a great privilege to serve on the HP board and see this outstanding company build on its legacy as a technology leader and innovator. HP is well-positioned to drive – and profit from – the changes under way across the technology industry, and I am confident that, with Léo as CEO and Ray as chairman, HP has a strong leadership team in place to continue moving the company forward.”

The board plans to nominate the following current directors to stand for re-election at the Annual Meeting of Stockholders:

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